


War and a Cuppa

by Marlena_Owens



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22404274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marlena_Owens/pseuds/Marlena_Owens
Summary: A glimpse into the intersecting lives of Hilda and Zelda during the second world war.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman/Zelda Spellman
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be updated every few days.   
> (Sorry I've sucked in the recent past. Recovering from trauma can be tough!)

Zelda found herself idly wondering whether the icy precipitation currently mixing with her tears enhanced or ruddied her complexion. Sometimes the season suited her, but mostly it didn't. 

She tugged the Kerrybrooke reefer more tightly around her body, pleased with her certainty that the coat suited her if not the season. It was functional in the manner required of all wartime clothing, but the pretty sky blue wool, feminine v-neck, and pinched-in waist lured Zelda to unearth last year's coat from her impeccable closet. 

Nothing kills a person's sense of fashion more quickly than mass mortal casualties. She smiled ever so slightly at the irony of her words. 

Her eyes methodically scanned the River Thames in a ritual shared between only she and the water-- a jarringly personal moment experienced by the countless others who've also mused over life's greatest tragedies in this exact spot. The lights twinkled delicately with the current and the water displayed the reflection of a city that was constantly refreshing itself anew. 

Except for now. Now great, ugly holes have appeared in the picture where years-old history stood proudly (if not entirely erect or unmouldy) mere months before. 

The water from the sky began to penetrate the crepe satin lining of a coat that withstood more than one heartbreak with the passing of time; and the water below began to lose its charm. 

And maybe more than once the heartbreak underlying this asinine ritual originated from her sister. 

Maybe.


	2. 2

Hilda was pleased she roused herself in time to receive the frantic phone call from a dockworker who was decidedly dispensible in this sort of life event... except, of course, to telephone. 

"Mission House. Nurse Spellman speaking." She whittled away at the gravedirt stuck in her ears with a twisted end of handkerchief as she murmured attention-paying sounds to her caller. 

"Mmm. Yep. You were brilliant to call us quickly like you did. I am on my way. Please light a candle in your flat by the window so that I can more easily locate you." 

She glanced out of the window at the foggy, grey mist enclosing the city. She smiled. It was good to feel above-ground waters after soaking in the damp groundwater of below. 

'Both the future and the past are essentially untouchable,' she mused silently as she performed the mechanics of leaving on a call. 'Sure, you can Cunning yourself into likely future scenarios, but you would only be seeing one possibility in one realm. You can voodoo your influence on an enemy's loved one's loved one, but it is naive to believe there are no other forces capable of interfering.'

'No. The only little part of this big, vast world that you have total control over is you, in the now. Always. Until it's never. But never in beteeen; at least not for mortals or for witches, aside from those very special few caveats.'

Hilda admired the rough dockworkers and the pram-pushing mothers and the fistacuffs children who stared at her with a mixture of reverence and pity. She enjoyed the exciting, complicated networks formed amongst neighbours and the personal ingormation to which she was privy. 

Hilda enjoyed thinking about others, mostly because it distracted her from thinking about herself. And mortals were a constant source of peculiar and insane fodder for thinking. 

And as Hilda Spellman bicycled towards the promise of new life, Zelda walked further down the unforgiving path of death and bitter memory.


	3. Chapter 3

Referring to the jar of dirt hidden in the nook behind Zelda's dresser as "cain pit" dirt was certainly a misnomer. A pit of land in which to bury your little sister was yet another luxury obliterated by the war, along with tasteful pubs adept at dodging blitz bombs. 

The plot of land in which the person is buried is largely irrelevant to their ressurection so long as the first handful of dirt to cover the corpse is both of the Spellman cain pit and is tossed from a Spellman palm. 

So the familial story has been conveyed for years, and so Zelda unquestioningly believes. 

Hilda has rather a different opinion about the mechanisms of the dirt-- involving a bit of botany, a lot of science, and a dash of dark magic-- but she's long since accepted it isn't worth the discussion. 

Nobody's exactly conducted studies as to the efficacy and reliability of the magic; Zelda is quite committed to solely murdering Hilda. She tells herself Hilda is the sole creature to have ever infuriated her into such action. Most infuriatingly, Hilda has yet to remain dead. 

Zelda rounded on the black iron gate, pleased at the cool contact offered by the water droplet-framed patches of rust against which she pushed her fingers. Heeled oxfords splashed functionally on the film of dirty water accentuating the brick-laid path as she approached the... hole... towards the back left of the cemetery. 

There, was not the filled-in plot of land she left hours ago in yesterday's nighttime; but rather an obviously evacuated (and predictably fleeting) resting place. 

She shrugged, huffed, wished it wasn't too rainy for a cigarette, and turned on a smart heel to head for home


	4. Chapter 4

Bicycling through the rain-slicked streets of the East End was less of a chore for Hilda than it was for the nuns and mortals with whom she worked. A quick rain diversion charm here and a pinch of peddling power there, and she was just uncomfortable enough to begin the task of squinting through the now solid sheet of rain. 

The housing tenements for which she was destined were overcrowded, unlit, and poorly marked. Hilda, whose magic was heavily influenced by nature, enjoyed spending her time out-of-doors. She would eventually settle down, yes, and prefer knitting and reading by the telly. But it was the '40's, and she was full of life. 

Suddenly, and quite intrusively, Hilda's brain cued into her sister's thoughts. Zelda was soaked, in need of a fag, and entrenched in a juvenile hatred of death. Nearly home, she was wondering whether Hilda would be there to greet her; again neglecting to remember Hilda's long-standing Friday night shift. 

Hilda's stomach knotted with anxieties about her most recent interaction with her sister. Large chunks of her own recollection of the evening had vanished. 

Eventually her shift would end and she would go home. 

She would placate her sister by nodding and murmuring supportively and she would cast her eyes downward in a symbolic act of submission. But it was purely symbolic.

Zelda steadfastly ignored a lesson in adulthood Hilda gravely accepted in toddlerhood. There is not life for one without the other. But the other, well, she could probably get on quite well without the one. 

It was with that fear-quelling thought that Hilda leaned her bicycle against brick and began climbing endlessly towards the 3rd storey. 

As a nurse and a midwife and a witch, the younger Spellman sister balanced precariously on the blurred edge that differentiates between beginning and end.

Mortal babies were constantly being born and mortal men were constantly being blown to bits. The mortal poor-- particularly impacted by political strife-- were perhaps the most deserving of Hilda's compassion and the least deserving of Zelda's scorn.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday Evening, 19:43

Hilda felt breathy, a bit dizzy, and her chest tightened uncomfortably as her gut feeling began its profound impact on her CNS. She'd require a nice, piping cuppa once this saga reached its conclusion. Which, from Hilda's perspective, was not to be any time soon.   
Zelda rapidly inhaled.   
She narrowed her eyes, parted her lips, resolved to speak, and quickly resumed scowling.   
Hilda responded by leaning in towards Zelda a bit further, inclining her head more pronouncedly, folding her hands in a pose both submissive and open.   
She was prepared for Zelda's onslaught, but Zelda was rarely pressured into rushing. Hilda was exhausted and willed the interaction to move more quickly.   
Years of practice allowed for the dance to be purely physical, charged more by the energies, magic, and memories than by the words themselves.   
Hilda smiled, showing a bit of teeth. Nodded her head encouragingly.   
The eggshell dance was starting to fatigue her already perpetually drained anxieties.   
"Please, sister." A dismissive exhale. Squared shoulders and a 90-degree turn to the left.   
Zelda was so beautiful, it hurt.   
"Of course I'm sure."   
Zelda said this exact phrase in 100% of situations in which she was unsure, Hilda mused. She opted to maintain her sister's bluff. "Okay." She nodded affirmitavely. "Right. Well, I'll just collect the materials and see about creating the little doll with the brown eyes and short hair and a tiny red bowtie at the collar..." A small smile; teeth again this time.   
The tricky part about dancing with-- or around, as the case may be-- Zelda, is that she can be stubbornly unsure of her next move. It is easy to incorrectly solve an inconsistent formula.   
"Erroneous response, sister."   
Hilda vaguely remembered a clothing iron that was-- praise Satan-- cool, making unpleasant contact with her head.


	6. Chapter 6

Hilda discovered Zelda at exactly 17:34, perched on her knees, swallowed in the space between their beds. The sound of her crying, at first smothered by the whistle of the tea kettle but then continuing after the heat had long been cut off, is what sent a still-shocked Hilda dazedly into their room with a potholder in hand.  
The crying that greeted her at the door was not what sent the holder sailing to the ground, however, although it did truly surprise Hilda.  
It was Zelda's back. Or rather, the six large dark red gashes crudely painted on the porcelain white skin of her back.  
The horrible, slanted wounds allowed Zelda's lifeblood to flow freely into the fabric of the brown dress pooled beneath her.  
Quite freely, in fact, observed Hilda's nurse's eye.  
"No!" Hilda sprung into action with the deftness of a practised midwife. "No, no, no!" The human side of her repeated the phrase at various pitches while she closed the gap between her sweet sister and herself. (Sometimes, in moments of duress, one remembers one's sister as quite nicer than reality).  
Firmly grabbing Zelda's wrists, Hilda guided her sister into a modified bear hug, careful to avoid direct contact with the worst of the wounds. A small struggle ended in Hilda's favour as Zelda's cat-o-nine lazily thumped to the floor, uninterested in the proceedings.  
Tom padded in with a medical bag in between his teeth. Met the sisters on the floor. Dropped the bag within Hilda's reach.  
"You good lad," she thanked him with a wink.  
Zelda, who had obtained her sister's complete attention and urgency, listlessly allowed herself to be manipulated.  
Hilda, who was feeling everything at once, successfully quieted the noise in her head by focusing on one specific-- and rather important-- task.


	7. Chapter 7

'Always one to play both sides, I am,' Hilda thinks pensively as she scrubs dishes-- the mortal way-- and gazes out of the window. She is staring unfixedly towards the neatly aligned, grime-blackened brick facade of the neighbouring flats. The hot sink water hurts her hands a bit, and not enough. She submerges them past her wrists, stares at a sunken knife with no real conviction, and closes her eyes.  
Hilda's firting with a time-tested desire to self-injure and a tendency to overly commit. She inhales. Exhales. Picks up the wash rag and forces her eyes to the window. She's crying.  
Sometimes vivid, elaborate thoughts reduce the urges; and she's imagining all sorts of unexciting scenarios far milder (but somehow more upsetting) than her sister's. In Hilda's head-- where she spends quite a lot of her time-- the nearly-reality situations are far more compelling than the garish or obscure. She spends quite a lot of her time with the obscure and fantasizes of the mundane.  
Mortals die by their own hands in all sorts of average ways, and Hilda isn't quite sure if she envies them. Too many pills. The wrong pill. Knives. Guns. Ropes. Alcohol. Fire. Methods one might consider withstanding the test of time.  
She feels a deep and knowing sympathy for the poor creatures. Incessantly reminded that the short time from which they carve their tiny slices of life is borrowed. Mortals exist with an absolute certainty that one day they will not. Many pay off their loans early, perhaps because few can see far enough ahead.   
When she's finished with the kitchen she wanders down the hallway. She asks herself if all properly-thinking creatures have a nagging death wish. She figures they must. How can one know what it is to feel alive without wondering what it is to feel dead? She pops her head into their room. Zelda is as asleep as she was when Hilda left her salved and tightly tucked an hour of so ago.  
No; that isn't quite right.  
Zelda's sleeping appears the same (a twinge in her heart at how achingly serene she looks). But somewhere in the space of an hour when their paths weren't quite so crossed, Zelda has poured and nearly consumed an amber-looking drink. The glass-- perhaps two-tenths of a centimetre full-- is placed neatly at the bedside table's centre. Not balanced precariously over one edge; but rigidly positioned in a most sensical spot.  
Any nagging worry about the mixture of alcohol and healing broth is offset by a desparate thought: Zelda is lucid enough to have set the glass on a coaster.  



End file.
